Word.ws English Dictionary

rotacism

rotacism is the alternative spelling of rhotacism.

Meaning of rhotacism

Noun

rhotacism (countable and uncountable, plural rhotacisms)

  1. An exaggerated use of the sound of the letter R.
  2. (countable) A linguistic phenomenon in which a consonant changes into an R; rhotacization.
  3. The inability to pronounce the letter R; derhotacization.
    • For example: r’s may become burrs or guttural grunts or w’s or l’s (rhotacism); […]1970, Leland E. Hinsie, Robert Jean Campbell, Psychiatric Dictionary, Oxford University Press, page 711

Forms of rotacism

pluralrotacisms

Questions about rotacism

What is rotacism the alternative spelling of?
Rotacism is the alternative spelling of rhotacism.

Words near rotacism in the dictionary

  1. rotablator
  2. rotablators
  3. rotable
  4. rotables
  5. rotaceous
  6. rotacism
  7. rotacisms
  8. rotaevaporator
  9. rotaevaporators
  10. rotal
  11. rotalic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rotacism (page history and authors); rhotacism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “rotacism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rotacism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.